Last year's petition 'NO to waste aggregate recycling at Esk Quarry Faugh' targeted planning application 1/20/9004, that sought retrospective permission to recycle waste aggregates, alongside the existing permit to extract sand and gravel, which expires in December this year.

Earlier this year (2022), a week before this application was due to come before the Development & Control Committee and after eighty official objection submissions and 360 petition signatures, it was withdrawn by the applicant, approximately two years after being submitted.

The owner of the quarry has now submitted a new planning application - 1/22/9005 - applying for a 10 year extension to the life of the quarry for the purposes of sand and gravel extraction AND RECYCLING OF WASTE AGGREGATES.

How is this new application different from the previous one that was withdrawn? The emphasis of the application has been shifted onto the extraction of sand yet a permit to operate recycling of waste aggregates is STILL being applied for as part of this new application - so very little has essentially changed from the previous application except moving words around to make sand extraction the main focus.

This new application seeks permission for:

• the extraction of 240,000 tonnes of sand & gravel
• up to 60 truck movements per weekday
• the importation of thousands of tonnes of waste for the purposes of aggregate recycling - with a permit capacity to process 75,000 tonnes per year
• the infill/burying of 52,000 tonnes of waste as part of the restoration scheme
• a delay of 10 years on the restoration of the quarry to agricultural land, as laid out in the current permit - due to expire in December 2022

TEN MORE YEARS OF MISERY FOR FAUGH, HEADS NOOK & HOW MILL

Esk Quarry is unusual - it is in a remote location served by an inadequate road network and it lies adjacent to a village and shares a boundary with many residential homes.

Residents of Faugh, Heads Nook & How Mill have suffered long enough with dust, noise and vibration, never mind the worry of what unknown unpleasantness is being recycled or buried. Quarry traffic through Heads Nook threatens children, pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders. The same applies to Hayton, Broadwath and Burnrigg when trucks ignore the approved routing. In the short term Wannop vehicles will add to HGV congestion on the A69 at Corby Hill and Warwick Bridge. In the medium term, if the A69 is de-trunked, Wannop trucks will still be on our roads.

A further concern of local residents is the long-term environmental impact of the importation and processing of up to 75,000 tonnes per year of waste - 52,000 of which will be buried in the quarry over the ten year period. Environment Agency monitoring is inadequate (one inspection a year or less) and in 2021 identified breaches of permit related to ' a failure to sample waste properly'. There is a very real concern that this development is 'an open door' for the quarry being used as a landfill for unknown and possibly contaminated waste that could leach into the underlying water table or the local water courses. It is interesting to note that in planning permission prior to 2007 for Esk Quarry, the import of all waste materials was prohibited! Why is it now acceptable to bury 52,000 tonnes here?

PLEASE HELP TO STOP THIS DEVELOPMENT and restore peace and quiet to our communities and safety to our roads - submit an objection to this application by emailing :  richard.cryer@cumbria.gov.uk     quoting planning reference 1/22/9005

or online at:       https://planning.cumbria.gov.uk/Planning/Display/1/22/9005        (click on this link, then on the planning website scroll down and click the 'accept' button)

PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION AND LEAVE A COMMENT - tell us why this issue is important to you - even if you signed and commented on last year's petition - that has now closed, so please take the time to re-submit your comments.

Join and support the campaign on Facebook - 

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100087378421173

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT!